As computer systems and networked computer systems proliferate, information access time becomes more critical. For many reasons, access time to information databases has a tendency to increase even with frequent equipment upgrades and technology advances. This tendency is apparent in mostly all database accesses which involve telecommunications links and is especially visible to the growing number of users of the Internet and worldwide web applications.
Most Internet applications provide a user a plurality of selections for accomplishing a "search" for specific information in which a user may be interested. In those cases, the access speed may depend upon the search engine program design and also upon the data path and interim sites selected, and also the selected telecommunications link.
Once a user selects a search engine and then later selects one or more data paths, that path history is typically saved in the user's hard drive. However, if the user "logs-off" from a browser session, and then later wishes to return to the same site or to an intermediate site of the earlier history, the user must initiate a new log-on procedure and re-select each sequential site of the earlier data path until the user arrives at the site he wishes to re-visit or to advance from. This process is long, tedious and time-consuming.
In another application, when a user is attempting to re-create a data path which the user had established during an earlier web session, the user must attempt to re-create the data paths previously established through the user's recall. That method is often faulty and unreliable and the user is frequently unable to re-establish an earlier search or data path.
In other situations, a user may wish to organize his prior Internet or "web" searches by one or more categories, or the user may wish to edit his prior web searches by creating efficient data base paths which have proven to be the most productive. Further, even during current sessions, a user may wish to re-organize his "current" data path history by appending the more efficient current search paths to previous search paths established on earlier Internet sessions, or by appending, at key points, earlier search paths or portions thereof, to a present search path history.
Accordingly, there is a need for an enhanced method and processing apparatus which is effective to allow a user to select, organize and/or manipulate prior established data paths for use in present or future data access activities in order to expedite the data or information searching process without requiring the user to re-create the previously used data path by means of a sequential site-by-site log-on access protocol.